Neat, but I still don't feel that I need one now, or that I'll need one in the next few years. I guess I haven't really seen what useful things can be made with 3D printers...almost everything from them I've seen IRL is either a small statue or jewelry.
This is invariably the top comment in any thread here about 3D printing. And yes, if you're not in the habit of making things (whether for fun or professionally) without a 3D printer, then you probably won't find much use for one. Most people never interact with unique objects, objects which aren't produced by the thousands or millions. And those types of mass produced objects can be made much more easily and well using traditional manufacturing.
I agree that 90% of the 3D printing going on is just for novelty items like jewelry or statues, which doesn't seem worth it to me. But if the novelty printers provide enough of a market to ensure the availability of printers for people who are using them for inventions or scientific instruments, then it's fine with me.
Things I've printed in the last few months:
* a bracket for installing a PID controller into my homemade sous vide cooker
* brackets for clamping a shaft and pulley into a specific configuration for a tension testing rig
* a tiny clamp for holding ceramic fibers in said test rig
* an adapter for mounting a custom optical filter to a camera
I'm a mechanical engineer and I use 3D printing for countless things at work and occasionally in my own life but unless you are making things at home at least once a month it doesn't make sense to have your own and I think that is what the OP is saying. The idea of a "household" 3D printer doesn't appeal to him because like most consumers they don't want to make things they just want to buy them.
If you think of the 3D printer more like a tablesaw and less like a microwave the market shrinks but the use case becomes much more clear.
I always though this was especially weird because someone who would get that amount of use or more out of one probably wants something _really_ awesome and not something cheap. Maybe even something that could print metal?
I get the super cheap novelty use. After that I thought what you want is a service to send your design to and get an awesome quality piece back.
> someone who would get that amount of use or more out of one probably wants something _really_ awesome and not something cheap.
You're forgetting about what was the primary driving force behind commercial 3D printers, which is hobbyists who don't have money for a full machine shop. Those are the people who popularized assembling Rep-Raps, and who are now buying cheap printers to play with them and use for their projects.
If you're a professional with a good idea what you're going to do with the printer, you definitely should go for something expensive. But if you're just a Joe Random Hacker, you probably can't afford anything more than the cheap one (and even if you could, you also need money to buy other parts for hardware projects).
I may want something awesome, but wanting something now is a higher priority. When prototyping, I value my time and how fast I can iterate through the create-test-modify cycle more than build quality. At home, the quality has to be good enough, but not perfect.
the most obvious application is replacing parts - replacement battery covers, game/toy parts, buttons, small pieces of car trim, really anything smallish and plastic that gets lost or broken could be replaced with a 3d printer.
potential replacement for non plastic parts too depending on the application.
also customizing parts. Custom dice for games, etc etc.
Are any of those things really a problem in an age of cheap disposable crap, though?
Battery cover gets lost? Replace the whole thing.
Toy breaks? Replace the whole thing.
Button comes off your jacket? Replace the whole thing.
(I'm not saying this is an ideal world -- I personally would much rather live in a world where things are long-lived but cost more -- but it's the world we live in.)
I've been keeping a list of all the things I could have 3D-printed if I had a 3D printer. Maybe some of these will pique your interest:
* Mounts for my washing machine's broken shocks (shocks were fine but the plastic part that holds them to the frame broke). $80/piece for whole new shocks or I could have just printed new mounts (which really are a stupidly simple snap-on component) for less than a dollar.
* The knob on one of our standing lamps broke and won't stay on anymore. I can order a new one for $1.50+$4.95 S/H or I could have just 3D-printed a really cool/custom one for $0.05.
* Lost some of the pieces in your Monopoly game? Just print some new ones. Heck, any gaming figurines can be printed trivially and there's a plethora of free, already-made ones to choose from.
* Missing Lego parts.
* Vacuum cleaner parts... I always wanted one of those wide under-furniture attachments but can't justify the purchase. If I had a 3D printer I could just print one.
* Seriously cool-looking/unique ceiling fan blades (you can print them even on a small 3D printer since you can join multiple parts together on the back of the blade where no one will see).
> The knob on one of our standing lamps broke and won't stay on anymore. I can order a new one for $1.50+$4.95 S/H or I could have just 3D-printed a really cool/custom one for $0.05.
Six bucks and change doesn't sound too bad to me, if it saves me having to spend time tracking down or building an appropriate 3D model to print. I could understand the attraction if it was $100, but six bucks?
> Lost some of the pieces in your Monopoly game? Just print some new ones. Heck, any gaming figurines can be printed trivially and there's a plethora of free, already-made ones to choose from.
But you can also use more or less any random thing you have lying around as a board game token, for free. Coins, thumb caps, washers, pieces of wood...
> Missing Lego parts.
Would they be able to stand up to daily use for years by enthusiastic children?
Lego parts also fit pretty well into the "just go buy some more" approach, too. You can get a bucket of 600 Lego bricks for $30.
> Seriously cool-looking/unique ceiling fan blades... seriously cool/useful wall plates and switches...
Presumably if lots of people wanted these things, somebody would be making them at scale in China already, no? It's fine if you want them, more power to you, but they don't really seem like something the mass market is breathlessly waiting for.
> Collar tags for my dogs.. children's toys... Halloween masks... protractors and compasses of any size... phone cases...
These things are the very definition of "cheap plastic crap," already available in a stunning kaleidoscope of colors, shapes and sizes at every retail environment from gas stations on up for practically nothing.
Not to mention that things like children's toys have a status component to them that can't be 3D printed. Kids don't want a toy that kinda looks like Groot from Guardians of the Galaxy, they want an Official Groot™ Action Figure By Hasbro like the one they've been saturation-bombed with TV advertising for. (And if they don't, their friends will happily torment them for not being sufficiently brand-conscious.)
> Custom Tupperware-like containers/boxes.
Is 3D-printer plastic safe to use for food storage?
Will most people want to spend time finding out when they can get a set of five Tupperware containers for $30?
> Would they be able to stand up to daily use for years by enthusiastic children?
They wouldn't need to if you could just print replacements.
The real problem with 3D printing lego bricks is that I don't think any current 3D printers can print precise enough parts. Even most Lego competitors produce inferior quality pieces with less precision.
> Lego parts also fit pretty well into the "just go buy some more" approach, too. You can get a bucket of 600 Lego bricks for $30.
You'd think so. But now try to source specific parts. specific mini figures etc.. People make a living buying Lego sets to separate the sets and sell rare mini figures and pieces individually, and sell of the basic pieces in larger lots
Many pieces are only available in a handful of sets. Many pieces only exist in discontinued sets. Many pieces only exist in specific colors.
Go to a Lego store, and you will find that the more "advanced" parts are rarely on offer in anything but big sets, while the basic parts can be bought by the bucketful.
Even with the second hand market, if you're trying to reproduce something, and realise you're missing a specific part and the alternative is going to the shops and buying a set that may have the piece, or waiting a few days, being able to just start an app and pick one from a catalogue would be amazing.
There's also a market for custom minifigs, that are today often quite expensive because the people making them rarely have any options for mass production. Whole new categories both of minifigs and pieces would become possible if they could be 3D printed.
> Presumably if lots of people wanted these things, somebody would be making them at scale in China already, no? It's fine if you want them, more power to you, but they don't really seem like something the mass market is breathlessly waiting for.
There's a lot of potential for things that are impractical to mass produce because while people may agree they want the category of product, they may disagree about specific features sufficiently that the only commercially available alternatives are not that satisfactory.
And there are a lot of things that would be convenient to have at some point or other, but that is too much effort to be worth tracking down, but would be nice if you could just download and print a design in minutes.
> Kids don't want a toy that kinda looks like Groot from Guardians of the Galaxy, they want an Official Groot™ Action Figure By Hasbro like the one they've been saturation-bombed with TV advertising for.
Do you have a kid? I can for sure say that while my son certainly do want the exact specific versions of a lot of things, he also often picks up on things that are not branded, or the exact specific thing he want is not the professional, polished version. And I think TV will be losing it's hold: My son just now (and this is a regular occurrence) picked an amateur Youtube video over Cartoon Network. His favourite "show" is a Youtube channel hosted by a 6-7 year old kid that builds lego and plays video games.
(and for the purposes of this: LEGO has surpassed Hasbro as the top toy manufacturer in the world - that should say something about opportunities in this market)
> Will most people want to spend time finding out when they can get a set of five Tupperware containers for $30?
Quite possibly not. But that is a problem today because it is new. It will quickly cease to be a problem.
Search for EvanTube. To be clear, they're clearly making quite a bit of money from it - it's not all innocent kid making his own videos just for fun (my son does enjoy those kind of videos too) - unsurprisingly since it's effectively hours after hours of toy / videogame advertising, and they have a fairly professional setup.
My son, though, interestingly doesn't often ask for any of the stuff he showcases, though he does ask me to help build home-grown versions of some of the lego. And it got him into Minecraft.
My son now wants his own YouTube channel (lucky me - I've been put in charge of getting the technical side sorted out), and his own Minecraft server, and Evan is by far his favourite "celebrity". And this is the most professionally produced YouTube channel he watches. In general he seems to care more about watching a kid around his age that he can relate to than how professional the video is (e.g. he actively dislikes a lot of the adults doing toy / videogame review videos)
I spend a lot of time socializing with people who build and develop 3D printers at a shop that operates 3D printers as a service. Printers include delta bots, Makerbot 2X, and a CubePro.
Larger parts can be problematic on consumer quality 3D printers (particularly if they aren't being constantly fussed with). Very routinely 3D printer owners seem to have to put large amounts of time in to getting the printer to work correctly, and large complex pieces can take more than one (8+ hour) attempt.
Most of the things larger than a phone case (and it's the height direction that seems particularly problematic) have trouble printing in some fashion or another. This means that several of the most useful applications just aren't there yet.
I can't reply to the parent of this, so I'll reply here. PLA is considered food safe, but it can't handle the heat of a dishwasher. I know because of all of the cookie cutters I make for people. Washing makes them warp and brittle.
From experience a pla cup with less than 100% infill will "drink" it's liquid into its interior and have to hope like hell that it hasn't been drinking milk or a substance that rots similarly.
I have printed lego compatible parts in the past. About 2 years ago...IIRC they were bases for Warhammer or something like that. https://flic.kr/p/cq7uRf Plus, many of the duplo sized wooden train track adapters ( http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4041 )...which is really one of the benefits of the printer with toys...making mashups that would never be sold by the actual competing toy companies.
* Support for anything that you want to place somewhere the manufacturer didn't forsee. Whant to hang something that can only go on tables? Or put on a table something that must be hanged? Fans position is a problem?
* Wire organizers. Really, why nobody sells a way to organize wires in storage?
I built my printer for a side project, and up to very recently, anything that I printed that wasn't related to this project had the goal of improving the printer. Besides fixing broken stuff, that's what I printed at the last couple of months.
Same here: handle on our washing machine broke (plastic). It's no longer in production and I can't find one anywhere. A printer means never having to upgrade to a new model just because you can't get the parts.
3d printing is a way to extend a product's life. But I think it will prove useful for a repair guy/technician rather than for a hobbyist. Making small series of spares for a unsupported product is profitable vs used spares market. One example are vintage synthesizers. There is such demand for some spares that synths are being dismantled rather than repaired. Sometimes the upper C key (which is unique on a keyboard) can be sold for 50 bucks or more.
The limitation to that logic for me is being concerned about having models for the missing parts. I've got a remote missing a battery cover that I'd love to replace, but I wouldn't have the faintest idea how to design a model for it.
I use mine (Prusa i3 reprap design) mostly for camera stuff. I've made a few lens adapters from old manual focus bayonet mounts to my Sony A7, printed the physical housing to get a full-sized speedlite flash mounted to the Fuji Instax 210 instant camera, etc. Pretty ideal for cameras where you are often wanting to mate this thing to that thing with some sort of adapter that may or may not exist otherwise or might cost a ridiculous amount of money for what it is due to relatively low demand for the part.
That's awesome! Are those parts open-source anywhere? Also, curious as to how sturdy those are and what exactly they're made from. In my (quite limited) experience handling printed parts, they didn't really seem like the type of thing I'd trust to hold something expensive + fragile like a camera lens.
Someday I need to clean up a bunch of other things and figure out what the cool kids are using to share designs instead of thingiverse now that Makerbot is kind of shunned by large portions of the open 3d printer community.
I print parts for my cameras in ABS which is pretty strong and has a nice side benefit in that if it ever does fail, it fails in a slow stretchy sort of way as opposed to just exploding like PLA plastic does.
I'm not sure what type of plastic the pieces you've held are but there's a really wide range of available materials ranging from really brittle to really strong (also with various degrees of heat tolerance in the end part).
I've used the lens adapters quite extensively and haven't had anything fail yet and some of the lenses I use with them are large old lens designs from the late 70s which tend to be quite heavy.
I felt that way until I realized that 3d printing could be the lego for the next generation of kids. Hell, start with legos, then print out the parts that you wish you had, and refine until you've got something that's actually "maker worthy."
Save the files, then start on your next project. Add a microcontroller! yay! I'm completely projecting on my kid, and that's my right as a father! Muahahaha!
